The
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company (commonly referred to as HP) or shortened
to
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard (/ˈhjuːlɪt ˈpækərd/ HEW-lit PAK-ərd) was an
American multinational information technology company headquartered in
Palo Alto, California. It developed and provided a wide variety of
hardware components as well as software and related services to
consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and large
enterprises, including customers in the government, health and
education sectors.
The company was founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto by William
"Bill" Redington Hewlett and David "Dave" Packard, and initially
produced a line of electronic test equipment. HP was the world's
leading PC manufacturer from 2007 to Q2 2013, after which
LenovoLenovo came
to rank ahead of HP.[1][2][3] It specialized in developing and
manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware,
designing software and delivering services. Major product lines
included personal computing devices, enterprise and industry standard
servers, related storage devices, networking products, software and a
diverse range of printers and other imaging products. HP marketed its
products to households, small- to medium-sized businesses and
enterprises directly as well as via online distribution,
consumer-electronics and office-supply retailers, software partners
and major technology vendors. HP also had services and consulting
business around its products and partner products.
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard company events included the spin-off of its electronic
and bio-analytical measurement instruments part of its business as
Agilent TechnologiesAgilent Technologies in 1999, its merger with
CompaqCompaq in 2002, and the
acquisition of EDS in 2008, which led to combined revenues of
$118.4 billion in 2008 and a
Fortune 500Fortune 500 ranking of 9 in 2009. In
November 2009, HP announced the acquisition of 3Com,[4] with the deal
closing on April 12, 2010.[5] On April 28, 2010, HP announced the
buyout of
Palm, Inc.Palm, Inc. for $1.2 billion.[6] On September 2, 2010,
HP won its bidding war for
3PAR3PAR with a $33 a share offer
($2.07 billion), which
DellDell declined to match.[7]
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard split the PC and printers business from its enterprise
products and services business on November 1, 2015, resulting in two
publicly traded companies:
HP Inc.HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.[8]
In 2017,
Hewlett Packard EnterpriseHewlett Packard Enterprise spun-off its Enterprises Services
division as
DXC TechnologyDXC Technology and its
SoftwareSoftware division to Micro Focus.

William Redington Hewlett[9] and
David PackardDavid Packard graduated with degrees
in electrical engineering from
Stanford UniversityStanford University in 1935. The
company originated in a garage in nearby Palo Alto during a fellowship
they had with a past professor,
Frederick TermanFrederick Terman at Stanford during
the Great Depression. Terman was considered a mentor to them in
forming Hewlett-Packard.[10] In 1938, Packard and Hewlett begin
part-time work in a rented garage with an initial capital investment
of US$538. In 1939 Hewlett and Packard decided to formalize their
partnership. They tossed a coin to decide whether the company they
founded would be called
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard (HP) or Packard-Hewlett.[11]
HP incorporated on August 18, 1947, and went public on November 6,
1957.
Of the many projects they worked on, their very first financially
successful product was a precision audio oscillator, the Model HP200A.
Their innovation was the use of a small incandescent light bulb (known
as a "pilot light") as a temperature dependent resistor in a critical
portion of the circuit, the negative feedback loop which stabilized
the amplitude of the output sinusoidal waveform. This allowed them to
sell the Model 200A for $89.40 when competitors were selling less
stable oscillators for over $200. The Model 200 series of generators
continued until at least 1972 as the 200AB, still tube-based but
improved in design through the years.
One of the company's earliest customers was Walt Disney Productions
which bought eight Model 200B oscillators (at $71.50 each) for use in
certifying the
FantasoundFantasound surround sound systems installed in theaters
for the movie Fantasia.
They worked on counter-radar technology and artillery shell fuses
during World War II, which allowed Packard (but not Hewlett) to be
exempt from the draft.[12]
1960s

The HP200A, a precision audio oscillator, was the company's very first
financially successful product.

HP is recognized as the symbolic founder of Silicon Valley, although
it did not actively investigate semiconductor devices until a few
years after the "traitorous eight" had abandoned
William ShockleyWilliam Shockley to
create
Fairchild SemiconductorFairchild Semiconductor in 1957. Hewlett-Packard's HP
Associates division, established around 1960, developed semiconductor
devices primarily for internal use. Instruments and calculators were
some of the products using these devices.
HP partnered in the 1960s with Sony and the Yokogawa Electric
companies in Japan to develop several high-quality products. The
products were not a huge success, as there were high costs in building
HP-looking products in Japan. HP and Yokogawa formed a joint venture
(Yokogawa-Hewlett-Packard) in 1963 to market HP products in Japan.[13]
HP bought Yokogawa Electric's share of
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Japan in
1999.[14]
HP spun off a small company, Dynac, to specialize in digital
equipment. The name was picked so that the HP logo "hp" could be
turned upside down to be a reverse reflect image of the logo "dy" of
the new company. Eventually Dynac changed to Dymec, then was folded
back into HP in 1959.[15] HP experimented with using Digital Equipment
Corporation (DEC) minicomputers with its instruments, but after
deciding that it would be easier to build another small design team
than deal with DEC, HP entered the computer market in 1966 with the HP
2100 /
HP 1000HP 1000 series of minicomputers. These had a simple
accumulator-based design, with registers arranged somewhat similarly
to the
Intel x86Intel x86 architecture still used today. The series was
produced for 20 years, in spite of several attempts to replace it, and
was a forerunner of the HP 9800 and
HP 250HP 250 series of desktop and
business computers.
1970s

The
HP 3000 was an advanced stack-based design for a business
computing server, later redesigned with
RISCRISC technology. The HP 2640
series of smart and intelligent terminals introduced forms-based
interfaces to
ASCIIASCII terminals, and also introduced screen labeled
function keys, now commonly used on gas pumps and bank ATMs. The HP
2640 series included one of the first bit mapped graphics displays
that when combined with the
HP 2100HP 2100 21MX F-Series microcoded
Scientific Instruction Set[16] enabled the first commercial WYSIWYG
Presentation Program,
BRUNOBRUNO that later became the program HP-Draw on
the HP 3000. Although scoffed at in the formative days of computing,
HP would eventually surpass even
IBMIBM as the world's largest technology
vendor, in terms of sales.[17]

Although
Programma 101Programma 101 was the first commercial "desktop computer", HP
is identified by Wired magazine as the producer of the world's first
device to be called a personal computer, the
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard 9100A,
introduced in 1968.[18]
Programma 101Programma 101 was called "computer personale"
(in Italian), at Fiera di Milano, 1966.[19] HP called it a desktop
calculator, because, as Bill Hewlett said, "If we had called it a
computer, it would have been rejected by our customers' computer gurus
because it didn't look like an IBM. We therefore decided to call it a
calculator, and all such nonsense disappeared." An engineering triumph
at the time, the logic circuit was produced without any integrated
circuits; the assembly of the CPU having been entirely executed in
discrete components. With CRT display, magnetic-card storage, and
printer, the price was around $5,000. The machine's keyboard was a
cross between that of a scientific calculator and an adding machine.
There was no alphabetic keyboard.
Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, originally designed the Apple I
computer while working at HP and offered it to them under their right
of first refusal to his work, but they did not take it up as the
company wanted to stay in scientific, business, and industrial
markets. Wozniak said that HP "turned him down 5 times", but that his
loyalty to HP made him hesitant to start Apple with Steve Jobs.[20]
The company earned global respect for a variety of products. They
introduced the world's first handheld scientific electronic calculator
in 1972 (the HP-35), the first handheld programmable in 1974 (the
HP-65), the first alphanumeric, programmable, expandable in 1979 (the
HP-41C), and the first symbolic and graphing calculator, the HP-28C.
Like their scientific and business calculators, their oscilloscopes,
logic analyzers, and other measurement instruments have a reputation
for sturdiness and usability (the latter products are now part of
spin-off Agilent's product line, which were later spun-off from
AgilentAgilent as Keysight Technologies).[21] The company's design philosophy
in this period was summarized as "design for the guy at the next
bench".[citation needed]
The 98x5 series of technical desktop computers started in 1975 with
the 9815, and the cheaper 80 series, again of technical computers,
started in 1979 with the 85.[22] These machines used a version of the
BASIC programming languageBASIC programming language which was available immediately after they
were switched on, and used a proprietary magnetic tape for storage. HP
computers were similar in capabilities to the much later
IBMIBM Personal
Computer, although the limitations of available technology forced
prices to be high.[citation needed]
1980s

In 1984, HP introduced both inkjet and laser printers for the desktop.
Along with its scanner product line, these have later been developed
into successful multifunction products, the most significant being
single-unit printer/scanner/copier/fax machines. The print mechanisms
in HP's tremendously popular
LaserJetLaserJet line of laser printers depend
almost entirely on Canon Inc.'s components (print engines), which in
turn use technology developed by Xerox. HP develops the hardware,
firmware, and software that convert data into dots for the mechanism
to print.[citation needed]
On March 3, 1986, HP registered the HP
.com.com domain name, making it the
ninth Internet
.com.com domain ever to be registered.[23]
In 1987, the Palo Alto garage where Hewlett and Packard started their
business was designated as a
CaliforniaCalifornia State historical landmark.
1990s
In the 1990s, HP expanded their computer product line, which initially
had been targeted at university, research, and business users, to
reach consumers. HP also grew through acquisitions. It bought Apollo
Computer in 1989 and
Convex ComputerConvex Computer in 1995.
Later in the decade, HP opened hpshopping
.com.com as an independent
subsidiary to sell online, direct to consumers; in 2005, the store was
renamed "HP Home & Home Office Store."
From 1995 to 1998,
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard were sponsors of the English
football team Tottenham Hotspur.
In 1999, all of the businesses not related to computers, storage, and
imaging were spun off from HP to form
AgilentAgilent Technologies. Agilent's
spin-off was the largest initial public offering in the history of
Silicon Valley.[24] The spin-off created an $8 billion company
with about 30,000 employees, manufacturing scientific instruments,
semiconductors, optical networking devices, and electronic test
equipment for telecom and wireless R&D and production.
In July 1999, HP appointed Carly Fiorina, formerly of AT&T and
Lucent, as the first female
CEO of a Fortune-20 company in the Dow
Jones Industrial Average.[25] Fiorina received a larger signing offer
than any of her predecessors.[26] Fiorina served as
CEO during the
technology downturn of the early 2000s and led the merger with Compaq
that was "disastrous", according to CNN and led to the firing of
30,000 U.S. employees.[27] Under her leadership, the company doubled
in size. Her tenure as
CEO was beset by damaging leaks.[28] The HP
Board of Directors asked Fiorina to step down in 2005 following a
boardroom disagreement, and she resigned on February 9, 2005.[29]
Sales to
IranIran despite sanctions
In 1997, HP sold over $120 million worth of its printers and computer
products to
IranIran through a European subsidiary and a Dubai-based East
distributor, despite U.S. export sanctions prohibiting such deals
imposed by Bill Clinton's executive orders issued in 1995.[30][31][32]
The story was initially reported by The Boston Globe,[33] and it
triggered an inquiry by the SEC. HP responded that products worth
US$120 million were sold in fiscal year 2008[34] for distribution by
way of Redington Gulf, a company based in the Netherlands, and that as
these sales took place through a foreign subsidiary, HP had not
violated sanctions.[30]
HP named Redington Gulf "Wholesaler of the Year" in 2003, which in
turn published a press release stating that "[t]he seeds of the
Redington-
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard relationship were sowed six years ago for
one market — Iran."[30] At that time, Redington Gulf had only three
employees whose sole purpose was to sell HP products to the Iran
market.[33] According to former officials who worked on sanctions, HP
was using a loophole by routing their sales through a foreign
subsidiary.[30] HP ended its relationship with Redington Gulf after
the SEC inquiry.[30]
2000–2005

On September 3, 2001, HP announced that an agreement had been reached
with
CompaqCompaq to merge the two companies.[35] In May 2002, after passing
a shareholder vote, HP officially merged with Compaq. Prior to this,
plans had been in place to consolidate the companies' product teams
and product lines.[36]
CompaqCompaq had already taken over
Digital Equipment CorporationDigital Equipment Corporation in 1998.
HP therefore still offers support for the former Digital Equipment
products PDP-11, VAX and AlphaServer.
The merger occurred after a proxy fight with Bill Hewlett's son
Walter, who objected to the merger.
CompaqCompaq itself had bought Tandem
Computers in 1997 (which had been started by ex-HP employees), and
Digital Equipment CorporationDigital Equipment Corporation in 1998. Following this strategy, HP
became a major player in desktops, laptops, and servers for many
different markets. After the merger with Compaq, the new ticker symbol
became "HPQ", a combination of the two previous symbols, "HWP" and
"CPQ", to show the significance of the alliance and also key letters
from the two companies
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard and
CompaqCompaq (the latter company
being famous for its "Q" logo on all of its products).
In 2004, HP released the DV 1000 Series, including the HP Pavilion dv
1658 and 1040 two years later in May 2006, HP began its campaign, "The
Computer is Personal Again". The campaign was designed to bring back
the fact that the PC is a personal product. The campaign utilized
viral marketing, sophisticated visuals and its own website
(www.hp.com/personal). Some of the ads featured Pharrell,[37] Petra
Nemcova, Mark Burnett, Mark Cuban, Alicia Keys,[38] Jay-Z,[39] Gwen
Stefani, and Shaun White.[citation needed]
In January 2005, following years of under performance, which included
HP’s
CompaqCompaq merger that fell short,[40] and disappointing earning
reports,[41] the board asked Fiorina to resign as chair and chief
executive officer of the company. Following the news of Fiorina’s
departure, HP’s stock jumped 6.9 percent.[42] Robert Wayman, chief
financial officer of HP, served as interim
CEO while the board
undertook a formal search for a replacement.[43]
Mark HurdMark Hurd of
NCR CorporationNCR Corporation was hired to take over as
CEO and
president, effective 1 April 2005. Hurd was the board's top choice
given the revival of NCR that took place under his leadership.[40]
2006–2009

A sign marking the entrance to the HP corporate headquarters in Palo
Alto, California, 2006

iPAQ 112 Pocket PC from 2008

In 2006, HP unveiled several new products including desktops, enhanced
notebooks, a workstation and software to manage them, OpenView Client
Configuration Manager 2.0.[44] In the same year, HP’s share price
skyrocketed due to consistent results in the last couple quarters of
the year with Hurd’s plan to cutback HP’s workforce and lower
costs.[45]
In July 2007, HP signed a definitive agreement to acquire
Opsware in a
cash tender deal that values the company at $14.25 per share. This
combined
Opsware software with the Oracle enterprise IT management
software.[46]
In the first few years of Hurd's new role, HP's stock price more than
doubled. By the end of Fiscal 2007, HP hit the $100 Billion mark for
the first time. The company’s annual revenue reached $104 Billion,
allowing HP to overtake competitor IBM.[47]
On May 13, 2008, HP and
Electronic Data SystemsElectronic Data Systems (EDS) announced[48]
that they had signed a definitive agreement under which HP would
purchase EDS. On June 30, HP announced[49] that the waiting period
under the
Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements ActHart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 had
expired. "The transaction still requires EDS stockholder approval and
regulatory clearance from the European Commission and other non-U.S.
jurisdictions and is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the
other closing conditions specified in the merger agreement." The
agreement was finalized on August 26, 2008 at $13 billion, and it was
publicly announced that EDS would be re-branded "EDS a HP company."
The first targeted layoff of 24,600 former EDS workers was announced
on September 15, 2008.[50] (The company's 2008 Annual Report gave the
number as 24,700, to be completed by end of 2009.[51]) This round was
factored into purchase price as a $19.5 billion liability against
goodwill. As of September 23, 2009, EDS is known as HP Enterprise
Services.
On November 11, 2009,
3Com3Com and
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard announced that
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard would be acquiring
3Com3Com for $2.7 billion in
cash.[52] The acquisition is one of the biggest in size among a series
of takeovers and acquisitions by technology giants to push their way
to become one-stop shops. Since the beginning of the financial crisis
in 2007, tech giants have constantly felt the pressure to expand
beyond their current market niches.
DellDell purchased Perot Systems
recently to invade into the technology consulting business area
previously dominated by IBM. Hewlett-Packard's latest move marked its
incursion into enterprise networking gear market dominated by Cisco.
2010–2012

On April 28, 2010,
Palm, Inc.Palm, Inc. and
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard announced that HP
would buy Palm for $1.2 billion in cash and debt.[53] Before this
announcement, it was rumored that either HTC, Dell, Research in Motion
or HP would buy Palm. Adding Palm handsets to the HP product line
created some overlap with the iPAQ series of mobile devices but was
thought to significantly improve HP's mobile presence as iPAQdevices
had not been selling well. Buying Palm gave HP a library of valuable
patents, as well as the mobile operating platform known as webOS. On
July 1, 2010, the acquisition of Palm was final.[54] The purchase of
Palm's webOS began a big gamble – to build HP's own ecosystem.[55]
On July 1, 2011, HP launched its first tablet named HP TouchPad,
bringing webOS to tablet devices. On September 2, 2010, HP won its
bidding war for
3PAR3PAR with a $33 a share offer ($2.07 billion)
which
DellDell declined to match. After HP's acquisition of Palm, it
phased out the
CompaqCompaq brand.
On August 6, 2010,
CEOMark HurdMark Hurd resigned amid controversy and CFO
Cathie Lesjak assumed the role of interim CEO. Hurd had turned HP
around and was widely regarded as one of Silicon Valley's star CEOs.
Under his leadership, HP became the largest computer company in the
world when measured by total revenue.[56] Accused of sexual harassment
against a colleague, the allegations were deemed baseless. The
investigation led to questions concerning between $1000 and $20000 of
his private expenses and his lack of disclosure related to the
friendship.[57][58] Some observers have argued that Hurd was innocent,
but the board asked for his resignation to avoid negative PR.[59]
Public analysis was divided between those who saw it as a commendable
tough action by HP in handling expenses irregularities, and those who
saw it as an ill-advised, hasty and expensive reaction, in ousting a
remarkably capable leader who had turned the business
around.[57][58][60] At HP, Hurd oversaw a series of acquisitions worth
over $20 billion. This allowed the company to expand into services of
networking equipment and smartphones.[61] Shares of HP dropped by 8.4%
in after-hours trading, hitting a 52-week low with $9 billion in
market capitalization shaved off.[62]
Larry EllisonLarry Ellison publicly attacked
HP's board for his ousting, stating that the HP board had “made the
worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired
Steve JobsSteve Jobs many years ago.”[63]
On September 30, 2010,
Léo ApothekerLéo Apotheker was named as HP's new
CEO and
President.[64] Apotheker's appointment sparked a strong reaction from
Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison,[65] who complained that
Apotheker had been in charge of SAP when one of its subsidiaries was
systematically stealing software from Oracle. SAP accepted that its
subsidiary, which has now closed, illegally accessed Oracle
intellectual property.[66] Following Hurd's departure, HP was seen by
the market as problematic, with margins falling and having failed to
redirect and establish itself in major new markets such as cloud and
mobile services.[citation needed] Apotheker's strategy was broadly to
aim at disposing of hardware and moving into the more profitable
software services sector. On August 18, 2011, HP announced that it
would strategically exit the smartphone and tablet computer business,
focusing on higher-margin "strategic priorities of Cloud, solutions
and software with an emphasis on enterprise, commercial and government
markets"[67] They also contemplated selling off their personal
computer division or spinning it off into a separate company,[68]
quitting the 'PC' business, while continuing to sell servers and other
equipment to business customers, was a strategy already undertaken by
IBMIBM in 2005.[69]
HP's stock continued to drop, by about a further 40% (including 25% on
one day, August 19, 2011), after the company abruptly announced a
number of decisions: to discontinue its webOS device business (mobile
phones and tablet computers), the intent to sell its personal computer
division (at the time HP was the largest personal computer
manufacturer in the world), and to acquire British big data software
firm
Autonomy for a 79% premium, seen externally as an "absurdly high"
price[70] for a business with known concerns over its accounts.[71]
Media analysts described HP's actions as a "botched strategy shift"
and a "chaotic" attempt to rapidly reposition HP and enhance earnings
that ultimately cost Apotheker his job.[70][72][73] The Autonomy
acquisition had been objected to even by HP's own CFO.[74][75]:3–6
On September 22, 2011, the HP Board of Directors fired Apotheker as
chief executive, effective immediately, and replaced him with fellow
board member and former eBay chief Meg Whitman,[76] with Raymond J.
Lane as executive chairman. Though Apotheker served barely ten months,
he received over $13 million in compensation.[77] HP lost more than
$30 billion in market capitalization during his tenure. Weeks later,
HP announced that a review had concluded their PC division was too
integrated and critical to business operations, and the company
reaffirmed their commitment to the Personal Systems Group.[78] A year
later in November 2012 wrote-down almost $9 billion related to the
Autonomy acquisition (see below: Takeover of Autonomy), which became
the subject of intense litigation as HP accused Autonomy's previous
management of fraudulently exaggerating Autonomy's financial position
and called in law enforcement and regulators in both countries, and
Autonomy's previous management accused HP of "textbook" obfuscation
and finger pointing to protect HP's executives from criticism and
conceal HP culpability, their prior knowledge of Autonomy's financial
position, and gross mismanagement of
Autonomy after acquisition.[75]:6
On March 21, 2012, HP said its printing and PC divisions would become
one unit headed by Todd Bradley from the PC division. Printing chief
Vyomesh Joshi is leaving the company.[79]
On May 23, 2012, HP announced plans to lay off approximately 27,000
employees, after posting a profit decline of 31% in the second quarter
of 2012.[80] The profit decline is on account of the growing
popularity of smart phones, tablets, and other mobile devices, that
has slowed the sale of personal computers.[81]
On May 30, 2012, HP unveiled its first net zero energy data center. HP
data center plans to use solar energy and other renewable sources
instead of traditional power grids.[82]
On July 10, 2012, HP's Server Monitoring
SoftwareSoftware was discovered to
have a previously unknown security vulnerability.[83] A security
warning was given to customers about two vulnerabilities, and a patch
released.[84] One month later, HP's official site of training center
was hacked and defaced by a Pakistani hacker known to as 'Hitcher' to
demonstrate a web vulnerability.[85]
On September 10, 2012, HP revised their restructuring figures; they
are now cutting 29,000 jobs. HP had already cut 3,800 jobs – around
7 percent of the revised 29,000 figure – as of July 2012.[86]
2013–2015
On December 31, 2013, HP revised the amount of jobs cut from 29,000 to
34,000 up to October 2014. The current amount of jobs cut until the
end of 2013 was 24,600.[87][88][89] At the end of 2013 the company had
317,500 employees. On May 22, 2014 HP announced it would cut a further
11,000 to 16,000 jobs, in addition to the 34,000 announced in 2013.
"We are gradually shaping HP into a more nimble, lower-cost, more
customer and partner-centric company that can successfully compete
across a rapidly changing IT landscape,"
CEOMeg WhitmanMeg Whitman said at the
time.[90]
In June 2014, during the HP Discover customer event in Las Vegas, Meg
Whitman and Martin Fink announced a project for a radically new
computer architecture called The Machine. Based on memristors and
silicon photonics, The Machine is supposed to come in
commercialization before the end of the decade, meanwhile representing
75% of the research activity in HP Labs.[91]
On October 6, 2014,
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard announced it was planning to split
into two separate companies, separating its personal computer and
printer businesses from its technology services. The split, which was
first reported by
The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal and confirmed by other
media, would result in two publicly traded companies: Hewlett Packard
Enterprise and
HP Inc.HP Inc.Meg WhitmanMeg Whitman would serve as chairman of HP Inc.
and
CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise,
Patricia RussoPatricia Russo would be
chairman of the enterprise business, and
Dion Weisler would be
CEO of
HP, Inc.[92][93][94]
On October 29, 2014,
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard announced their new Sprout
personal computer.[95]
In May 2015, the company announced it would be selling its controlling
51 percent stake in its Chinese data-networking business to Tsinghua
Unigroup for a fee of at least $2.4 billion.[96]
On November 1, 2015, as previously announced,
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard legally
ceased to exist and split into two companies,
HP Inc.HP Inc. and Hewlett
Packard Enterprise.[97]
HP Inc.HP Inc. is the legal successor of the old
Hewlett-Packard; the split was structured so that Hewlett-Packard
changed its name to
HP Inc.HP Inc. and spun off
Hewlett Packard EnterpriseHewlett Packard Enterprise as
a new publicly traded company.
HP Inc.HP Inc. retains Hewlett-Packard's stock
price history and its stock ticker symbol, HPQ, while Hewlett Packard
Enterprise trades under its own symbol, HPE.[98]
Facilities

HP's global operations are directed from its headquarters in Palo
Alto, California, USA. Its U.S. operations are directed from its
facility in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, near Houston. Its
Latin America offices are in unincorporated Miami-Dade County,
Florida, U.S., near Miami; Its Europe offices are in Meyrin,
Switzerland, near Geneva, but it has also a research center in the
Paris-SaclayParis-Saclay cluster, 20 km south of Paris, France. Its
Asia-Pacific offices are in
Singapore.[99][100][101][102][101][103][104]
It also has large operations in Leixlip, Ireland;[105] Austin, Texas;
Boise, Idaho; Corvallis, Oregon; Fort Collins, Colorado; Roseville,
California; Saint Petersburg, Florida; San Diego, California; Tulsa,
Oklahoma; Vancouver, Washington; Conway, Arkansas; and Plano, Texas
(the former headquarters of EDS, which HP acquired). In the UK, HP is
based at a large site in
Bracknell, BerkshireBracknell, Berkshire with offices in various
UK locations, including a landmark office tower in London, 88 Wood
Street. Its recent acquisition of
3Com3Com will expand its employee base
to Marlborough, Massachusetts.[106] The company also has a large
workforce and numerous offices in Bucharest,
RomaniaRomania and at Bangalore,
India, to address their back end and IT operations. MphasiS, which is
headquartered at Bangalore, also enabled HP to increase their
footprint in the city as it was a subsidiary of EDS which the company
acquired.
Products and organizational structure

HP office in Japan

HP produces lines of printers, scanners, digital cameras, calculators,
PDAs, servers, workstation computers, and computers for home and
small-business use; many of the computers came from the 2002 merger
with Compaq. HP as of 2001[update] promotes itself as supplying not
just hardware and software, but also a full range of services to
design, implement, and support IT infrastructure.
HP's Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) was described by the company in
2005 as "the leading imaging and printing systems provider in the
world for printer hardware, printing supplies and scanning devices,
providing solutions across customer segments from individual consumers
to small and medium businesses to large enterprises".[107]

On December 23, 2008, HP released iPrint Photo for iPhone, a free
downloadable software application that allows the printing of 4" x 6"
photos.[108]
HP's Personal Systems Group (PSG) claims to be "one of the leading
vendors of personal computers ("PCs") in the world based on unit
volume shipped and annual revenue."[107] PSG deals with:

HP resold the Apple iPod until November 2005.[107]
HP Enterprise BusinessHP Enterprise Business (EB) incorporates HP Technology Services,
Enterprise Services (an amalgamation of the former EDS, and what was
known as HP Services), HP Enterprise Security Services oversees
professional services such as network security, information security
and information assurance/ compliancy, HP
SoftwareSoftware Division, and
Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking Group (ESSN). The
Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking Group (ESSN) oversees "back
end" products like storage and servers.
HP Networking (former
ProCurve) is responsible for the NW family of products. They are a
business unit of ESSN.

An HP camera with an SDIO interface, designed for use in conjunction
with a Pocket PC

HP
SoftwareSoftware Division is the company's enterprise software unit. For
years,[when?] HP has produced and marketed its brand of
enterprise-management software, HP OpenView. From September 2005 HP
purchased several software companies as part of a publicized,
deliberate strategy to augment its software offerings for large
business customers.[109] HP
SoftwareSoftware sells several categories of
software, including:

HP
SoftwareSoftware also provides software as a service (SaaS), cloud
computing solutions, and software services, including consulting,
education, professional services, and support.
HP's Office of Strategy and Technology[110] has four main functions:

steering the company's $3.6 billion research and development
investment
fostering the development of the company's global technical community
leading the company's strategy and corporate development efforts,[111]
performing worldwide corporate marketing activities

Under the Office of Strategy and Technology comes HP Labs, the
research arm of HP. Founded in 1966,
HP LabsHP Labs aims to deliver new
technologies and to create business opportunities that go beyond HP's
current strategies. Examples of recent
HP LabsHP Labs technology includes the
Memory spot chip of 2006. HP IdeaLab further provides a web forum on
early-state innovations to encourage open feedback from consumers and
the development community.[112]
HP also offers managed services by which they provide complete
IT-support solutions for other companies and organizations. Some
examples of these include:

offering "Professional Support" and desktop "Premier Support" for
MicrosoftMicrosoft in the EMEA marketplace. This is done from the Leixlip
campus near Dublin,
SofiaSofia and Israel. Support is offered on the line
of
MicrosoftMicrosoft operation systems, Exchange, Sharepoint and some
office-applications.[113]
outsourced services for companies like Bank of Ireland, some UK banks,
the U.S. defense forces.
the computerisation project at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS
Foundation Trust.

Staff and culture
Further information: List of
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard executive leadership
The founders developed a management style that came to be known as
"The HP Way." In Hewlett's words, the HP Way is "a core ideology ...
which includes a deep respect for the individual, a dedication to
affordable quality and reliability, a commitment to community
responsibility, and a view that the company exists to make technical
contributions for the advancement and welfare of humanity."[114] The
following are the tenets of The HP Way:[115]

We have trust and respect for individuals.
We focus on a high level of achievement and contribution.
We conduct our business with uncompromising integrity.
We achieve our common objectives through teamwork.
We encourage flexibility and innovation.

Corporate social responsibility
In July 2007, the company announced that it had met its target, set in
2004, to recycle one billion pounds of electronics, toner and ink
cartridges.[119] It set a new goal of recycling a further two billion
pounds of hardware by the end of 2010. In 2006, the company recovered
187 million pounds of electronics, 73 percent more than its closest
competitor.[120]
In 2008, HP released its supply chain emissions data — an
industry first.[121]
In September 2009,
NewsweekNewsweek ranked HP No. 1 on its 2009 Green Rankings
of America's 500 largest corporations.[122] According to
environmentalleader.com, "
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard earned its number one
position due to its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction programs,
and was the first major IT company to report GHG emissions associated
with its supply chain, according to the ranking. In addition, HP has
made an effort to remove toxic substances from its products, though
GreenpeaceGreenpeace has targeted the company for not doing better."[123]
HP took the top spot on Corporate Responsibility Magazine's 100 Best
Corporate Citizens List for 2010.[124] The list is cited by PR Week as
one of America's most important business rankings. HP beat out other
Russell 1000 Index companies because of its leadership in seven
categories including environment, climate changes and corporate
philanthropy. In 2009, HP was ranked fifth.[125]
Fortune magazine named HP one of the World's Most Admired Companies in
2010, placing it No. 2 in the computer industry and No. 32 overall in
its list of the top 50. This year in the computer industry HP was
ranked No. 1 in social responsibility, long-term investment, global
competitiveness, and use of corporate assets.[126]
In May 2011, HP released a Global Responsibility report covering
accomplishments during 2010.[127] The report, the company's tenth,
provides a comprehensive view of HP's global citizenship programs,
performance, and goals and describes how HP uses its technology,
influence, and expertise to make a positive impact on the world. The
company's 2009 report won best corporate responsibility report of the
year.[128] The 2009 reports claims HP decreased its total energy use
by 9 percent compared with 2008. HP recovered a total of 118,000
tonnes of electronic products and supplies for recycling in 2009,
including 61 million print cartridges.[129]
In an April 2010
San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chronicle article, HP was one of 12
companies commended for "designing products to be safe from the start,
following the principles of green chemistry." The commendations came
from Environment California, an environmental advocacy group, who
praised select companies in the Golden State and the Bay Area for
their efforts to keep our planet clean and green.[130]
In May 2010, HP was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies by
Ethisphere Institute. This is the second year in a row HP has made the
list. Ethisphere reviewed, researched and analyzed thousands of
nominations in more than 100 countries and 35 industries to create the
2010 list. HP was one of only 100 companies to earn the distinction of
top winner and was the only computer hardware vendor to be recognized.
Ethisphere honors firms that promote ethical business standards and
practices by going beyond legal minimums, introducing innovative ideas
that benefit the public.[131]
HP is listed in Greenpeace's Guide to Greener
ElectronicsElectronics that ranks
electronics manufacturers according to their policies on
sustainability, energy and climate and green products. In November
2011, HP secured the 1st place (out of 15) in this ranking (climbing
up 3 places) with an increased score of 5.9 (up from 5.5). It scored
most points on the new Sustainable Operations criteria, having the
best program for measuring and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases
from its suppliers and scoring maximum points for its thorough paper
procurement policy.[132] In the November 2012 report, HP was ranked
second, with a score of 5.7.[133]
HP does especially well for its disclosure of externally verified
greenhouse gas emissions and its setting of targets for reducing
them.[134][third-party source needed] However,
GreenpeaceGreenpeace reports that
HP risks a penalty point in future editions due to the fact that it is
a member of trade associations that have commented against energy
efficiency standards.[132]
HP has earned recognition of its work in the area of data privacy and
security.[135] In 2010 the company ranked No. 4 in the Ponemon
Institute's annual study of the most trusted companies for
privacy.[136] Since 2006, HP has worked directly with the U.S.
Congress, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Department of
Commerce to establish a new strategy for federal legislation.[137] HP
played a key role in work toward the December 2010 FTC report
"Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change."[138]
After winning nine straight annual "Most Respected Company in China"
awards from the Economic Observer and Peking University, HP
ChinaChina has
added the "10 Year Contribution" award to its list of accolades. The
award aims to identify companies doing business in
ChinaChina with
outstanding and sustained performance in business operations,
development and corporate social responsibility.[139]
In its 2012 rankings of consumer electronics companies on progress
relating to conflict minerals, the
Enough ProjectEnough Project rated HP second out
of 24 companies, calling it a "Pioneer of progress".[140]
Brand

According to a BusinessWeek Study, HP was the world's 11th most
valuable brand as of 2009.[141]
HP has many sponsorships. One well known sponsorship is Mission: SPACE
in
EpcotEpcot at the Walt Disney World Resort.[142] From 1995 to 1999, and
again from 2013, HP has been the shirt sponsor of[143] Premier League
club Tottenham Hotspur F.C.[citation needed] From 1997 to 1999 they
were sponsors of
Australian Football LeagueAustralian Football League club North Melbourne
Football Club.[citation needed] They also sponsored the BMW Williams
Formula 1 team until 2005 (a sponsorship formerly held by Compaq), and
as of 2010 sponsor Renault F1.[144]
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard also had the
naming rights arrangement for the HP Pavilion at San Jose, home of the
San Jose SharksSan Jose Sharks NHL hockey team until 2013, in which the arena's
naming rights were acquired by SAP AG, renaming the arena to the SAP
Center at San Jose.[145] The company also maintains a number of
corporate sponsorships in the business sector, including sponsorships
of trade organisations including
Fespa (print trade exhibitions), and
O'Reilly Media's Velocity (web development) conference.
After the acquisition of
CompaqCompaq in 2002, HP has maintained the "Compaq
Presario" brand on low-end home desktops and laptops, the "HP Compaq"
brand on business desktops and laptops, and the "HP ProLiant" brand on
Intel-architecture servers. (The "HP Pavilion" brand is used on home
entertainment laptops and all home desktops.)[146]
Tandem's "NonStop" servers are now branded as "HP Integrity
NonStop".[147]
Controversies
Restatement
In March 2003, HP restated its first-quarter cash flow from
operations, reducing it 18 percent because of an accounting error.
Actual cash flow from operations was $647 million, not $791 million as
reported earlier. HP shifted $144 million to net cash used in
investing activities.[148]
Spying scandal
Main article:
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard spying scandal
On September 5, 2006, Shawn Cabalfin and David O'Neil of Newsweek
wrote that HP's general counsel, at the behest of chairwoman Patricia
Dunn, contracted a team of independent security experts to investigate
board members and several journalists in order to identify the source
of an information leak.[149] In turn, those security experts recruited
private investigators who used a spying technique known as
pretexting.[150] The pretexting involved investigators impersonating
HP board members and nine journalists (including reporters for CNET,
The New York TimesThe New York Times and The Wall Street Journal) in order to obtain
their phone records. The information leaked related to HP's long-term
strategy and was published as part of a
CNETCNET article[151] in January
2006. Most HP employees accused of criminal acts have since been
acquitted.[152]
Hardware
In November 2007,
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard released a BIOS update covering a
wide range of laptops with the intent to speed up the computer fan as
well as have it run constantly, whether the computer was on or
off.[153] The reason was to prevent the overheating of defective
Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) that had been shipped to many
of the original equipment manufacturers, including Hewlett-Packard,
Dell, and Apple.[154] The defect concerned the new packaging material
used by Nvidia from 2007 onwards in joining the graphics chip onto the
motherboard, which did not perform well under thermal cycling and was
prone to develop stress cracks – effectively severing the connection
between the GPU and the motherboard, leading to a blank screen.[155]
In July 2008, HP issued an extension to the initial one-year warranty
to replace the motherboards of selected models.[156] However this
option was not extended to all models with the defective Nvidia
chipsets despite research showing that these computers were also
affected by the fault.[157] Furthermore, the replacement of the
motherboard was a temporary fix, since the fault was inherent in all
units of the affected models from the point of manufacture, including
the replacement motherboards offered by HP as a free
'repair'.[158][159] Since this point, several websites have been
documenting the issue, most notably www.hplies.com,[160] a forum
dedicated to what they refer to as Hewlett-Packard's "multi-million
dollar cover up" of the issue, and www.nvidiadefect.com, which details
the specifics of the fault and offers advice to the owners of affected
computers. There have been several small-claims lawsuits filed in
several states, as well as suits filed in other countries.
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard also faced a class-action lawsuit in 2009 over its i7
processor computers. The complainants stated that their systems locked
up within 30 minutes of powering on, consistently. Even after being
replaced with newer i7 systems, the lockups continued.[161]
Lawsuit against Oracle
On June 15, 2011, HP filed a lawsuit in
CaliforniaCalifornia Superior Court in
Santa Clara, claiming that
Oracle CorporationOracle Corporation had breached an
agreement to support the
ItaniumItanium microprocessor used in HP's high-end
enterprise servers.[162] On June 15, 2011, HP sent a "formal legal
demand" letter to Oracle in an attempt to force the world's No. 3
software maker to reverse its decision to discontinue software
development on Intel
ItaniumItanium microprocessor[163] and build its own
servers.[118] HP won the lawsuit in 2012, requiring Oracle to continue
to produce software compatible with the
ItaniumItanium processor.[164] HP was
awarded $3 billion in damages against Oracle on June 30,
2016.[118][165] HP argued Oracle's canceling support damaged HP
ItaniumItanium server brand. Oracle has announced it will appeal both the
decision and damages.
Takeover of Autonomy
See also:
Autonomy CorporationAutonomy Corporation § Hewlett Packard
In November 2012, HP recorded a writedown of around $8.8 billion
related to its acquisition a year earlier of the UK based Autonomy
Corporation PLC. HP accused
Autonomy of deliberately inflating the
value of the company prior to its takeover. The former management team
of
Autonomy flatly rejected the charge.
Autonomy specialized in analysis of large scale unstructured "big
data", and by 2010 was the UK's largest and most successful[72]
software business. It maintained an aggressively entrepreneurial
marketing approach, and controls described as a "rod of iron", which
was said to include zero tolerance and firing the weakest 5% of its
sales force each quarter, while compensating the best sales staff
"like rock stars".[74]
At the time, HP had fired its previous
CEO for expenses irregularities
a year before, and appointed
Léo ApothekerLéo Apotheker as
CEO and President. HP
was seen as problematic by the market, with margins falling and having
failed to redirect and establish itself in major new markets such as
cloud and mobile services. Apotheker's strategy was to aim at
disposing of hardware and moving into the more profitable software
services sector.
As part of this strategy,
Autonomy was acquired by HP in October 2011.
HP paid $10.3 billion for 87.3% of the shares, valuing
Autonomy at
around $11.7 billion (£7.4 billion) overall, a premium of around 79%
over market price. The deal was widely criticized as "absurdly high",
a "botched strategy shift" and a "chaotic" attempt to rapidly
reposition HP and enhance earnings,[70][72][73] and had been objected
to even by HP's own CFO.[74][75]:3–6 Within a year, Apotheker
himself had been fired, major culture clashes became apparent and HP
had written off $8.8 billion of Autonomy's value.[74]
HP claim this resulted from "accounting improprieties,
misrepresentations and disclosure failures" by the previous
management, who in turn accuse HP of a "textbook example of defensive
stalling"[75]:6 to conceal evidence of its own prior knowledge and
gross mismanagement and undermining of the company, noting public
awareness since 2009 of its financial reporting issues[75]:3 and that
even HP's
CFO disagreed with the price paid.[74][75]:3–6 External
observers generally state that only a small part of the write-off
appears to be due to accounting mis-statements, and that HP had
overpaid for businesses previously.[74][166]
The Serious
FraudFraud Office (United Kingdom), and the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission joined the FBI in investigating the potential
anomalies. HP incurred much damage with its stock falling to decades'
low.[167][168][169] Three lawsuits were brought by shareholders
against HP, for the fall in value of HP shares. In August 2014 a
United StatesUnited States district court judge threw out a proposed settlement,
which Autonomy's previous management had argued would be collusive and
intended to divert scrutiny of HP's own responsibility and knowledge,
by essentially engaging the plaintiff's attorneys from the existing
cases and redirecting them against the previous
Autonomy vendors and
management, for a fee of up to $48 million, with plaintiffs agreeing
to end any claims against HP's management and similarly redirect those
claims against the previous
Autonomy vendors and management.[170][171]
In January 2015 the SFO closed its investigation as the likelihood of
a successful prosecution was low.[172] The dispute is still being
litigated in the US, and is being investigated by the UK and Ireland
Financial Reporting Council. On June 9, 2015, HP agreed to pay $100
million to investors who bought HP shares between August 19, 2011, and
November 20, 2012 to settle the suite over
Autonomy purchase.[173]
Israeli settlements
On October 25, 2012, Richard Falk, the Human Rights Council’s
SpecialSpecial Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian
territories occupied since 1967, called for boycotting HP together
with other "businesses that are profiting from Israeli settlements on
occupied Palestinian lands until they brought their operations in line
with international human rights and humanitarian law".[174][175] In
2014, the Presbyterian Church voted to move forward with divestment
from HP "in protest of Israeli policies toward Palestinians".[176] In
2015, the City of Portland's Human Rights Commission requested to
place Caterpillar, G4S, Hewlett-Packard, and
Motorola SolutionsMotorola Solutions on the
City’s “Do Not Buy” list.[177]
Bribery
On April 9, 2014, an administrative proceeding before Securities and
Exchange Commission was settled by HP consenting to an order
acknowledging that HP had violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
(FCPA) when HP subsidiaries in Russia, Poland, and Mexico made
improper payments to government officials to obtain or retain
lucrative public contracts.[178]
The SEC's order finds that HP's subsidiary in Russia paid more than $2
million through agents and various shell companies to a Russian
government official to retain a multimillion-dollar contract with the
federal prosecutor's office. In Poland, HP's subsidiary provided gifts
and cash bribes worth more than $600,000 to a Polish government
official to obtain contracts with the national police agency. And as
part of its bid to win a software sale to Mexico's state-owned
petroleum company, HP's subsidiary in Mexico paid more than $1 million
in inflated commissions to a consultant with close ties to company
officials, and money was funneled to one of those officials. HP agreed
to pay $108 million to settle the SEC charges and a parallel criminal
case.[179][180][181]
See also